Understanding
by Moxie-Proxie
Summary: “I can’t say I know what it’s like to be in your shoes, Andy. I don’t, but when it comes to wanting to protect your family... I get that.” [JoshAndy, 6 months after episode 2.07]


I've never seen Andy this nervous before. Not once. She always seems so cool and relaxed. So fierce and comfortable in her braided hair and flowery gypsy skirts. But now sitting outside her house, she fidgets in the front seat of my car, tugging at a braid, picking at invisible bits of lint on her skirt. We've been dating for six months, a lifetime in high-school. This is the first time she's invited me to dinner at her house.

"Andy," I reached over and squeezed her hand, distracting her from the lint picking, "I promise to be on my best behavior," I said, flashing my best charming grin.

"This isn't a joke!" she tried to pull her hand away, but I held on.

"I know," I tucked the braid she's worried into frizzies back behind her ear. "I have an unconventional family too you know?"

She turned toward me, glaring and arms crossed with her soon to be patent "Josh, you're full of shit" expression. I've become intimately familiar with that look these past few months, she's also broadened my vocabulary but that's another story.

"Kyle isn't exactly cookie-cutter, if you haven't noticed. Not to mention one of my mom's ex-patients and recently orphaned."

She stayed quiet for a long minute, a sign of deep thought for Andy. Staring at the front door of her house. It's just turning dark, the porch light is on and the sounds of muted music spilling out the open windows.

"I just want to protect them," she whispered, still looking out the window and not at me, "the world can be so mean to them, to us. That house is ours. It's home, safe. Nobody looks at them funny when they kiss or hold hands, nobody calls them sinners and damns them to Hell while the help me with Algebra and mom makes spaghetti... I don't want to lose that."

"I won't hurt them," I whisper because I just know, if her mothers are anything like her, I'll love them. "I'll have questions and I'll probably be a moron a time or five, but I would never intentionally hurt them..."

I let my words trail off, because the next thought that pops into my head fells too sentimental to say. Something Kyle would say with his too world-weary for such a young dude wisdom, and smile that always seems to put damn near everyone at ease. That smile could take over the world.

"I know what it's like," the words come out and I don't want to take them back, "I know what it's like to lose family, to have them hurt."

Now she turned towards me, leaning her back against the car door. It's half-past five, we're early and I've already seen one woman with brown hair - Lainey - peek at us through the kitchen window. Andy doesn't seem concerned with being late and her parents seem to be giving her space, waiting for her to come inside.

"Kyle?" she links our fingers together, as though his name explains everything.

"Mmm," is all I reply.

"When his birth parents came to get him?"

I can't look up at her just then, because I know her green eyes will be full of understanding, caring. An I need to say things that I can't when she's looking at me with all that fragility in her eyes. Like Kyle's in so many ways. Innocence and knowledge, pure and covert in a way I haven't yet been able to put my finger on. Like no matter how hard I try I'll never completely understand them. But I keep trying, because I need to know.

"I was so pissed when he left," just saying it out loud felt good. My family knew it. Knew how angry I was, but I never actually said it and they couldn't get past their own pain long enough to ask. Like so many things, "I was so pissed at him for not fighting it. For just following after the Peterson's like a puppy on a damn leash."

"They were his family, Josh."

"No, they weren't," I look up and by the way she flinches a bit, the anger I didn't know I was still toting around has surprised her. Surprised me too. I regret scaring her for even a second. "He was ours," I whisper, because this is the part that I don't want to say. That makes me vulnerable. "He was ours the minute Mom brought him home. Alien. Genius. Ours." I pause because she squeezes my hand, I can hear her sniffle and I have to blink back tears hard. "Innocent pain in the ass with that damn smile, and when he frowns or gets sad? Sweet _God_ it's like you just sucked up his favorite hamster with the vacuum!"

By now we're both laughing, because it's so true.

"I've seen that frown," she's still laughing, her feet in my lap.

"I swear, he doesn't even know what a hamster _is_, but that's the look he gets."

"Exactly," she said, giggles subsiding, "like you really have broken his heart."

"Yeah..." I sigh, "but he's back now. I'm still not sure I buy the story about his birth parents death, seems too..."

"Lifetime Movie of the Week?"

"Yeah," I grin. "But he's ours, and I swear if any more parents show up... they aren't taking him away without a fight. A big friggin' fight."

"I can see your mom kicking ass an taking some serious mental notes," she teases.

I just nod, chuckling because in her weird way, she gets us. If anybody ever tried to get to Kyle again, they'd have to get through all of us first. Mom and dad, Lori and me. Amanda and Delcan too. We'd have to create a plan for Amanda to sneak out, knowing her mom but she'd be there. Even if it meant being grounded until she's fifty.

"I can't say I know what it's like to be in your shoes, Andy. I don't, but when it comes to wanting to protect your family... I get that."

"Good, because pink really doesn't suit you," she taps the toes of her pink and black checkered sneakers together with a beaming smile, and all I wanna do is kiss her.

With that same smile, she takes my hand and pulls me out of the car. We walk up the sidewalk to her house, our linked hands swinging between us. Going to meet Andy's mothers, Jenny and Lainey. Just before the door opens and we step inside, she stops.

"You should ask your mom about adopting Kyle."

"You think?"

"Yeah," she pauses, running her fingers through my hair and kissing my lips briefly, "something's should be official."

When I thought about the kiss later, or about the silver wedding rings Jenny and Lainey wore, what she said made more sense. Somethings just need to be official, validated, for nobody else but ourselves.

_Note: This is my first _Kyle XY_ piece, so I'm not sure if I got Josh's voice just right. I was trying to mature him a little bit. It's set about six months after episode 2.07 "Free To Be You and Me"._


End file.
